# Letting someone try a verification again

Source: https://help.didit.me/verification-sessions/retry-a-verification
Updated: 2026-10-12

Give a user a second attempt by requesting a resubmission of just the failed steps or starting a new session. Which one depends on the session's current status.

**Resubmission** if the session is In review, Declined, Approved, Abandoned or
KYC expired - same session, the person only redoes the steps you pick. **A new
session** if it Expired before it was opened. Resubmission is almost always the
better choice for a genuine user.

There are two ways to give someone another attempt: **request a resubmission** of the steps that failed, or **create a new session** from scratch. Which one you want depends on the session's current status.

## Option 1: Request resubmission (the session has an outcome)

Resubmission keeps the same session and history, and only asks the person to redo the specific steps that failed - not the whole verification. It's available once a session is In review, Declined, Approved, Abandoned, KYC expired or already Resubmitted.

![A verification record in the Didit console with the Resubmit button and the More actions menu](https://help.didit.me/screenshots/session-detail-light.webp)

*A retry is started from the session itself.*

1. **Open the session**

   In the [Business Console](https://business.didit.me), open **Identity verification → User verifications** and open the session.

2. **Request resubmission**

   Press **Resubmit** at the top of the session (or **Request resubmission** in **More actions**). Choose which steps the person needs to redo - any step that wasn't approved.

3. **Notify the person (optional)**

   If you have their email on file, you can send them a link straight to the resubmission automatically. You can also set the language of that email.

4. **Wait for the re-evaluation**

   The session status changes to **Resubmitted** while it waits. Once the person completes the requested steps, the system automatically re-evaluates and moves the session to **Approved**, **Declined**, or **In review**.

Resubmission can be requested more than once on the same session - each round is kept in the session's history for your records. Developers can trigger the same thing through the [update session status API](https://docs.didit.me/sessions-api/update-status).

## Option 2: Create a new session (session is Expired)

If a session **expired** before the person opened it, there is nothing to resubmit - create a fresh session and send them a new link, either with **New verification for this person** in the session's **More actions** menu (see [starting a verification from the console](https://help.didit.me/getting-started/start-a-verification-from-the-console)) or via the [create session API](https://docs.didit.me/sessions-api/create-session). **New verification for this person** needs the session to have vendor data; without it the option is greyed out with **Needs vendor data**. A new session gets its own session ID and starts from **Not started**.

Pass the same `vendor_data` you used the first time. That's what groups both attempts under one consolidated user, so you keep a single view of that person even though the sessions are separate.

## Which one should you use?

| | Resubmission | New session |
|---|---|---|
| Session ID | Same one | New one |
| History | Kept together in one place | Separate, linked only by `vendor_data` |
| What the person redoes | Only the failed steps | Everything |
| Works from | In review, Declined, Approved, Abandoned, KYC expired, Resubmitted | Any status, but mainly needed for Expired |
| Cost | Only the steps that re-run and complete | Every step in the workflow again |

For a fixable problem - a blurry photo, a wrong document side - resubmission is almost always the better choice: it's less friction for a genuine user, cheaper, and keeps a single audit trail.

## What a retry costs you

Billing happens per **completed feature**, so:

- A resubmission that redoes only the document step bills only that step.
- A brand-new session runs the whole workflow again and bills each feature that completes again.
- A step the person never reaches isn't billed at all.

That's the practical argument for resubmission over a fresh session on a fixable failure. See [what counts as a billable check](https://help.didit.me/billing-credits/what-counts-as-billable).

## Controlling how many attempts a person gets

If you'd rather a failed verification not offer the person another try inside the same flow, that's a workflow configuration question - the step's action on each warning decides whether the person is invited to retry, sent to review, or declined outright. See [decision rules and thresholds](https://help.didit.me/workflows/decision-rules).

> **Warning:** Be careful about removing retries entirely. Some capture failures are the
> device's fault, not the person's - a camera that dropped a frame or a phone that
> couldn't hold the NFC chip. Removing the retry converts those into permanent
> declines of legitimate users.

## Related

- [What each session status means](https://help.didit.me/verification-sessions/session-statuses)
- [Why a verification was declined](https://help.didit.me/verification-sessions/why-was-a-session-declined)
- [When a session never finishes](https://help.didit.me/verification-sessions/session-not-finished)